Tornado! (National Geographic Kids)

Gr 4-6--A welcome and popular addition on a topic that always needs updating. Like many other general surveys, this narrative contains eye-witness accounts, old newspaper headlines, and lists of the worst tornadoes in U.S. history. Without the gimmicks of the foldout pages of Mary Kay Carson's Inside Tornadoes (Sterling, 2010), the intensity and power of these brief but deadly storms are shown in large color photographs, drawings, and diagrams. While there are similarities in design--text and text boxes at a modest slant as in Cynthia Pratt Nicolson's Tornado! (Kids Can, 2003)--the authors' use of National Geographic's scrapbooklike graphics with text boxes looking like torn and windblown pieces of paper is engaging. The updating of the tornado rating system known as the Enhanced Fujita (EF) makes earlier works slightly outdated, although this season's tornadoes make even this work almost outdated. A two-page global map of tornado locations and intensities is included.--Frances E. Millhouser, formerly at Chantilly Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA